This Time
by kazoquel4
Summary: Sherlock and John, childhood best friends, were split apart after Sherlock moved away when he was seven. When he moves back years later, John is eager to rekindle their old friendship. Sherlock, however, is not as keen. Determined, John sets out to find just what it was that made his friend so wary and struggles to find a common ground with his reclusive neighbor. Kidlock/Teenlock.


**Summary: John and Sherlock were childhood best friends. When Sherlock moved away when he was seven, John was sure he would never see him again.  
When Sherlock moves back years later, however, John is eager to strike up their old friendship. But Sherlock is much more reclusive and reluctant to even speak to John than before, and is hiding quite a few dark secrets he doesn't want to share. Will John be able to coax his old friend into friendship once more, or are they fated to go on their own separate paths? **

This Time

It's funny, really, the memories a child can retain.

Looking back on their younger years, they can't remember important events or occasions. The majority of them can hardly remember what their favorite cartoon was when they were very young, or which foods they had liked and disliked so strongly.

I don't claim to have a stronger memory than any other child, but I trust my mind when it comes to my relationship with my best friend and the memories that are the only things that remain.

Ours was a short-lived friendship, spanning an entirety of perhaps three years before he moved away at only seven years old. But it was the strongest I had ever had, and I could still recall almost every exciting moment of it.

Sherlock Holmes and I had lived next door to each other almost all of our lives in the same apartment building. Despite countless efforts on our parents' parts to force us into friendship, Sherlock and I remained steadfast strangers. Perhaps they were part of the reason we didn't speak to each other until the age of four- even at that tender age, the constant pressuring made us want to rebel against our parents' influence. That, and Sherlock had simply been… odd, to say the least.

He was a very reclusive child, always watching everything silently from the corner. He rarely smiled, and laughed even less. He had already begun reading when I had just started talking, and could almost always be found clutching one of his little chapter books. At his side there always seemed to be a small plastic skull, which in equal parts repelled and attracted me to him.

The stories his older brother spread at parties helped even less. Mycroft was much more exuberant than his brother and found no shame in regaling the strangest stories about Sherlock and his exploits.

"He found a dead rat in the garden the other day," the ten-year-old would announce in a pompous voice, pointedly ignoring his brother's glares. "Brought it right up to his room and started poking it with a stick. Would have done more, too, if Mummy hadn't caught him at it."

I would wrinkle my nose. "Really?"

Mycroft would nod importantly. "You wouldn't believe the _stench_…"

As time passed I grew more and more curious about Sherlock and his 'experiments' with rats and other similar specimens. His personality could use some improvement in some aspects, but a cloud of mystery hung about him that drew me in, enticing me to find out more about him.

One day, when our parents were talking in the kitchen about politics or whatnot (deemed 'grown-up stuff' by my then childish ears), I gathered the courage to push myself up from the ground and slowly approach Sherlock. He was sitting in the corner as always, his knees drawn up to his chest and his nose buried in a book. I couldn't be sure what had spurred me into action on that specific day. I was probably just tired of the constant boredom that came with these get-togethers.

He looked up as I approached, staring at me with wide, icy blue eyes. They were narrowed ever so slightly, suspicious as I stood there uncertainly.

"What are you reading?" I asked, my voice somewhat higher-pitched than usual.

Sherlock slowly blinked at me, his entire body still. "A book."

I clasped my hands behind my back, rocking backward and forward on my feet nervously. "What about?"

Sherlock slowly cocked his head, regarding me with a confused expression. "Pirates."

"Really?" I took another few steps forward. "Can I see?"

He stared at me for another few moments before he carefully nodded.

I closed the last few steps between us and plopped down on the carpet, crossing my legs. He shifted around so I could see the book, which contained rather large printing but still many more words than I was accustomed to.

"See," Sherlock began, "there are these pirates on a ship, and they're trying to find to find buried treasure. Here's the chest." He flipped a few pages and jabbed his finger at an illustration of a brown treasure chest, turning it towards me so I could see.

I leaned in to examine it better. "There's a keyhole," I noted.

Sherlock nodded, looking almost pleased. "Exactly. The first thing they need to do is find the key, otherwise the chest would be useless. And to find the key they need a map."

"Where do they get the map?" I asked curiously.

"Other pirates, of course."

I watched as he turned the pages with careful fingers. "You know a lot about pirates."

He looked at me, a small smile on his face. It looked out of place there; I had only ever seen him glaring or frowning. "I want to be a pirate when I get older," he said proudly.

He sounded so confident; I hated to burst his bubble. "A pirate? Is that a real job?"

He looked insulted. "Of course it is!" he said. "Why else would they have written this book?"

I thought about it. "Oh. You're right." As he looked back down at the book to continue reading, I tried to think of another idea to keep him talking to me. "We could play pirates, if you wanted," I invented wildly.

Sherlock looked up at me, confused. "What?"

"Pirates," I said. "We could play it, if you want. Pretend."

He frowned doubtfully. "What's the point of that?"

I blinked. "Well, there is no point, I guess. It's fun, though. You can be the captain if you want, and I'll be first mate. My friends and I play army all the time, so we can just change a few of the rules to make it pirates instead of soldiers."

Sherlock very carefully closed his book, still looking at me with a slight frown. "Can we look for treasure?" he asked slowly.

I nodded. "We'll find all of it- and more!"

He watched me for another moment before his face split into a shy smile. "Alright, then."

Our parents found us an hour later in the closet, donned in all the pirate-like clothes we could find. And that marked the beginning.

Over the next three years, we did everything together. He would come over to my apartment to play pirates, and I would go over to his to read his impressive stock of books. In our spare time we did experiments, which usually included dissecting some poor dead animal we found outside. Sherlock was always very fascinated with that sort of thing.

We attended kindergarten together and the beginning of primary school. We quickly gained an infamous reputation amongst the teachers after Sherlock accidently set fire to the table during snack time and I steadfastly refused to admit that he had stolen some unknown liquids from his brothers' chemistry set to experiment with at school.

Time and time again Sherlock surprised me, even more so when he started opening up more. He was no longer the odd quiet kid my parents tried to force me to play with. He was always doing something interesting and against the rules, and he always had some unknown fact to rattle off. I soon came to learn that that boy could not keep his mouth shut for more than thirty seconds.

He corrected teachers. He corrected peers. He corrected our parents. He corrected me at my slightest mistake. It should have been annoying, but it wasn't, really; he couldn't seem to help himself. Besides, he got enough trouble from our other classmates without me trying to get him to stop.

The bullying started nearly as soon as we entered school. Our classmates never bothered me. In fact, I was quite friendly with them. Sherlock, on the other hand, grew quickly annoyed by every single one of them and spent most of his time trying to prove how superior he was to him. They retaliated, calling him names such as 'freak' and 'weirdo'. I know; very creative, but hey, they were five.

I did what I could to put a stop to it, but I couldn't do anything when I wasn't around. One time I stayed home sick with the flu, and he came by my apartment after school with a bloody nose. I tried to pressure him into telling me what had happened, but he kept turning the topic back to me, asking how I was feeling and whether or not I would be able to help him on his latest experiment.

Later that day, he came over with a tub of ice cream and sat with me for the remainder of the day. Perhaps he could tell I was worried about him. He could always spot those sorts of things.

A few weeks after Sherlock's seventh birthday, I started seeing changes. Our parents stopped having their usual get-togethers. Boxes started appearing, and the Holmes's things started pouring into them. I saw Sherlock less and less.

Their departure was a small affair. Sherlock didn't have any other friends to say goodbye to, and neither did Mycroft, apparently. The elder Holmes muttered a farewell to me and hopped in the car, slamming the door behind him.

Sherlock and I stared at each other for a few minutes, neither one of us sure what to say.

"You'll write me letters, won't you?" Sherlock asked abruptly, his blue eyes downcast.

"Of course I will," I said hurriedly. "Loads. It's not like we'll never see each other again."

Sherlock nodded firmly. "I'll make plans to come and visit you. Or you could visit me. Whatever."

"Yeah."

Sherlock scuffed at the ground with the tip of his shoe. "I don't want to leave," he muttered.

"I don't want you to leave, either." I blinked, my eyes suddenly very hot and wet. Sherlock's figure blurred as tears filled my gaze.

Sherlock glanced at me and a small grin pricked at his lips. "You aren't going to cry, are you?"

I hurriedly wiped my eyes, sniffing. "Of course not. Don't be stupid."

His smile died. I swallowed thickly, trying not to dissolve into tears. Then he threw himself at me, and I at him, and we hugged, holding onto each other fiercely as though we were never going to let go.

"I'll miss you, Sherlock," I said, a few rebellious tears escaping.

"I'll miss you, too, John," he said, his own face hidden from me. I wondered if he was crying as well.

Then he pulled back, and his face was calm and controlled. He held out his hand, straightening his shoulders. "See you, mate," he said, his voice shaking slightly.

I smiled and gripped his hand. "Aye aye, captain."

We stayed like that for another moment before Sherlock's parents shouted at him to hurry up. He let go of my hand and, with one more lingering look, turned and sprinted toward the waiting car.

"Bye!" I shouted as the car started. I stood on my tiptoes, watching it drive away. "Bye!" I waved energetically until the car disappeared, and even then I stood there, my hand raised, half-hoping Sherlock could still see me.

"Come on, John," my mother said gently, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Let's go inside."

I didn't talk much the rest of the day.

All in all, I received an entirety of two letters from Sherlock and sent him two in return. The first came about two weeks after he left, explaining everything about his new house. It was big, he said, and Mycroft's room was on the opposite end of the hall where he couldn't bother him. They had a big yard, too, with plenty of specimens for his experiments. He would be starting school in a couple of days. He missed me.

I wrote him back, telling him that nothing had changed and I missed our pirate games.

The next letter came more than a month after the first. It was much shorter. He was very vague about school, but I got the gist of it. _Everyone's dull and annoying. I hate it here. I miss you._

I miss you too, I wrote back.

I never heard from him again.

It was hard, accepting the loss of a friend, but at that young age it wasn't all that difficult getting through it. Without Sherlock, the other kids at school were more open. I joined the football team and spent hours outside with my new friends in the mud, kicking the ball back and forth. I still missed the pirate games and the experiments, but I had entered a whole new period of my life, and it wasn't that bad.

Ten years later, I rarely thought about Sherlock Holmes. I surely never expected to see him again. If he did cross my mind it was briefly, perhaps a distant, _I wonder how he's doing now, _or _Maybe Sherlock's hanging about somewhere. _Occasionally I would think back to our friendship and yearned for something like that. While my current friends were nice, my life had a monotonous drone to it that was slowly starting to wear me out. Surely Sherlock's life was full of excitement and fun, wherever he was. Unfortunately for me, our friendship had come to an end.

Until, that is, the vacant apartment across the hall from me received some new occupants.

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